“On the first Sabbath, the day after my arrival, soon after I began to speak the [cries] agonies and distress of the convicted drew my attention. Their bodies had all the appearance of convulsions….”
“[P]ersons who were not before known to be at all religious…would suddenly fall to the ground, and become strangely convulsed with what was called the jerks; the head and neck, and sometimes the body also, moving backwards and forwards with spasmodic violence, and so rapidly that the plaited hair of a woman’s head might be heard to crack….”
“I saw one old lady spring from her seat, and pass a dozen times across the house in every direction, by a succession of leaps from two to six feet; and, to my astonishment, she never failed to light squarely and firmly upon a bench! “
“A strange and unknown Nervous Affection, or Disease, made its appearance, in a variety of forms, in different parts of the Counties of Knox and Blount…. [It] was termed; ‘the Jerks.'”
“The jerking & barking exercises were astounding….”
